It’s almost like the universe was trying to give me subtle clues all my life to lead me to this point. Here’s the episode of a Kid’s TV Show I was on when I was 11. Not only was it called CLOCKwise and themed around TIME, but it was hosted by the multi-talented Darren DAY.

Ever been angry? So angry that you could spend an hour or two ranting to yourself or loved ones (or on Facebook)?

Of course you have. We all get angry at times. It’s our body giving us a Status Update about something that happened that we didn’t like. About a thing in the past! So why do we stay angry then?

Well, it’s my belief we’ll stay angry until we Acknowledge the anger (“OK, thanks for letting me know, Anger”), Accept it (“Anger, you were indeed appropriate for what happened there”) and then Align our thoughts and actions with how we want to feel next (“Anger, it’s not you, it’s me. I’ve got a thing for Joy and we’re meeting up very soon …”).

Maybe you’ve held onto some anger for years about a particular thing or someone. What good is it doing you? If we consider it within the TMTWGR philosophy, there’s an “opportunity cost” to being Angry for a long period (what could you spend that time on instead?). So it kind of makes sense to Acknowledge, Accept and then Align with some new feeling instead, right?

Now I’m not saying you have to do that. It’s your call! But I like making use of the following couple of phrases I made up a few years ago:

In the final months of the job I was doing when I discovered the TMTWGR philosophy, I uttered those words in a team meeting and hoped my co-workers would take note. I can’t remember the exact conversation, but it could have been anything because the words work in so many situations.

Anyway, they absolutely did take note. But not really in the way I expected. On my last day of working there, I received a copy of TIME magazine as one of my leaving presents, with those words on a Post-It note stuck on the front.

If you’re reading this now, guys, I want to thank you for that humour, and I really hope you did take note on a deeper level too. ❤️

“Everything you love turns to dust,
You’d make more of it but you felt rushed,
By all that’s periphery,
You held tight, but on the contrary,
The trick to life is not to get too attached to it,
The trick to life is not to get too attached to it”

A catchy tune with possibly the deepest and most useful lyrics you’ll ever hear.

“This is your life and it’s ending one minute at a time.” ~ Tyler Durden

“On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.” ~ Narrator

“The things you own end up owning you.” ~ Tyler Durden

“You’re not your job. You’re not how much money you have in the bank. You’re not the car you drive. You’re not the contents of your wallet. You’re not your f***ing khakis. You’re the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world.” ~ Tyler Durden

I know this is breaking the first and second rules, but I feel I must give this movie a mention.

When I first saw Fight Club at the cinema in 1999, I didn’t properly get the message. I just thought it was clever and cool and entertaining, which it totally is.

Years later, I realised how it’s a very well-done attempt at violently waking people up. As shown in the movie, the nameless narrator lives in an emotionally-blunted slumber, as a slave to the wage who is preoccupied by stuff instead of things that actually matter (like human connection). I would guess at least one person reading this right now can relate to that in some way.

“Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road
Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go
So make the best of this test, and don’t ask why
It’s not a question, but a lesson learned in time
It’s something unpredictable, but in the end it’s right
I hope you had the time of your life”

I’ve liked this song ever since I saw a live performance on TFI Friday almost 20 years ago back in October 1997 and I bought it the next day at work (I was a Saturday boy at a local record store – shout out to my Our Price family!). Within a week, I’d accumulated the entire Green Day back catalogue and I had learned to play this song fairly well on my acoustic guitar. They are still one of my favourite bands to this day.

“You’ve got to grind, grind, grind
At that grindstone
Though child’ood slips like sand through a sieve
And all too soon they’ve up and grown
And then they’ve flown
And it’s too late for you to give”

The turning point for Mr Banks in Mary Poppins is when Bert manages to get through to him. The change in the man is amazing afterwards. I see so much of myself in pre-epiphany Mr Banks and Bert, as they represent being not aligned with TMTWGR and being aligned with TMTWGR, respectively.

On 6th July 2007, I sent this email to Dave Gorman (off the TV). I’d set up the timemakestheworldgoround.com website and blog with some of my ideas on, and wanted to see what he thought. Unfortunately, I never got a reply. He was probably too busy!

Hi Dave,
(I just watched your Googlewack Adventure on Paramount for the third time yesterday. I love it!)

I’m writing a book called “Time Makes The World Go Round” based around the idea that “Spending your time wisely is the key to happiness whilst money is just an expensive distraction”, and figured you would be an excellent person to ask about this, because:

1) You clearly have difficult time management trade-offs to make (e.g. finding good emails from people vs spending too much time reading them)
2) There are presumably lots of ways you could be making more money, but you don’t appear to be prioritising that (which I think is excellent!)

Up until about a month ago, I had always prioritised making money to spend on my goal of making the largest positive impact on the world that I can. My daft plan was to get my own business and then use my power to solve a few of the world’s biggest problems.

Then one day (after inventing a couple of things and getting stressed about patenting them to make lots of money) I realised that I could be following my dreams without the need for money. I would write a book on finding happiness and put it on the web for free: http://timemakestheworldgoround.com.

Anyway, I’ll go now. I’m conscious of using up too much of your time (and hence your happiness)

All the best for the future,
Ian Bolton

I might chase him up on Twitter to see if he ever got the email or not!